I would like to thank all of you for your continued support of The Movement. Your time, your energy, your intellect, and your donations are vital for us to continue our work promoting and defending the Common Good. I’d like to share an example with you of some of our work in the explicitly political domain. It concerns misinformation and disinformation.
We hear a lot about misinformation and disinformation these days. What used to be a niche topic focused on by anti-communist activists and intelligence agencies has become part of everyday conversation. Rather than accuse someone of lying, it now seems more common to accuse them of spreading misinformation.
This is a problem because misinformation and disinformation are technical terms referring to specific forms of information and psychological warfare.
Disinformation refers to deliberate and intentional operations – often run by foreign intelligence services – to manipulate and influence public perception and social trust. They are usually part of a broad suite of influence operations, backed up by espionage and military might.
Misinformation, however, refers to people repeating the claims of disinformation operations, but doing so without realising that that is what they are doing.
Throwing around terms like disinformation and misinformation willy-nilly devalues them and turns them into empty insults. These are serious topics. They are fundamentally different from holding different perspectives on an issue, or from believing that a different policy approach is the best way to achieve outcomes.
Disinformation operations rely on the free expression of ideas and debate that characterise our democracy. But that does not mean we should sacrifice our democracy to counter disinformation operations.
This was the core problem with the proposed Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill. It used a roundabout means to target bad actors, which scooped up everyone else, and was more likely to play into the hands of well-resourced and professional manipulators.
The NCC made a submission to the Inquiry on the Draft Exposure Bill in which we outlined these points. We focused on the nature of disinformation, its genuine threat, and alternative means of countering it. We left the many other groups making submissions to focus on other problems with the legislation. As we go to press, the submissions have not yet been released.
We were able to make this submission because over the years we have made deep connections with experts on this topic and related topics. We’ve covered it in News Weekly and can draw on a deep archive of material. Our friends also made submissions of their own.
A lot of The Movement’s work is based on relationships, on deep personal connections developed over years. These relationships are built and developed like any other – over coffee and meals, at large events, and in small discussion groups. Not all of it is public, but all of it matters.
We are a Movement of people working towards the Common Good.
Thank you for your support and we hope to connect with some of you at upcoming dinners in Cairns(sold out), Geelong, Townsville(sold out), Bundaberg, Ballarat, Kingaroy, Mackay, Maryborough and Bendigo.
Luke McCormack
NCC NP